A wide variety of handheld wireless devices are available. Each of these devices includes a variety of features and capabilities that often differ widely from other devices. For example, 1) devices may have different displays with different sizes, different aspect ratios, etc.; 2) devices may have different Digital Right Management (“DRM”) settings, Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (“SMIL”) settings, different memory sizes, etc.; and/or 3) devices may have different media rendering capabilities.
In addition to the devices being different, the devices themselves may operate on different carriers that provide different capabilities and protocols as far as receiving various forms of rich media.
Content providers desire to provide, and users desire to receive via their devices, a wide variety of content. This content may include a variety of rich media, including photo slideshow media, audio media, video media, animation media, flash media, and other rich media. Each of these different types of content may require different technologies for transmission to (via push or pull) and rendering by various devices.
Often, users subscribe to receive content from content providers. In response, content providers desire to broadcast their content to each of their subscribers (i.e., users that subscribe to receive the content). However, content providers are ill equipped to keep pace with technological changes in the devices, the carriers on which the devices operate, and/or the content being broadcasted to the devices.
What is needed is an improved mechanism for providing a variety of content to different devices operating on different carriers.